Despite technological advances in developing renewable energy resources and in electricity grids, the current energy infrastructure of today suffer from many limitations requiring rapid improvement, as demand for such power increases, and regulatory requirements for use of “green” resources become more prominent, along with growing importance for grid security.
Power derived from renewable energy such as solar, wind, wave, and solar thermal resources are becoming increasingly relied upon, but each includes several limitations that impede them from becoming widespread, low-cost, efficient, and continually viable sources of electricity. Each is inherently unreliable, owing to factors such as changes in the time of day and variations in weather conditions that mean that maximized performance of components for each resource is very difficult to manage. Combining any of these together proves even more difficult to manage the inherent inefficiencies involved in operating devices and components to meet energy demand.
Nonetheless, requirements for using power generated from “clean” or “green” renewable resources are rapidly increasing. Enhanced ecological and environmental awareness, and a desire to reduce energy dependency on carbon-based fossil fuels and to decrease availability and price concerns resulting from exposure to geopolitical concerns, has led many governments to implement regulations that either dictate or impose limits on the amount of power produced and consumed that is generated from carbon-based or otherwise non-renewable energy sources. Because of this, there is a strong and continually developing need for efficient and cost-effective power generated from renewable energy resources.
In addition, an electrical grid is not a single entity but an aggregate of multiple networks and multiple power generation plants with multiple energy operators employing varying levels of communication and coordination. A smart grid increases connectivity, automation and coordination among power suppliers and power consumers and the networks that carry that power for performing either long-distance transmissions or local distribution.
The current conventional power distribution system involves multiple entities. For example, production of power may represent one entity; while the long distance transmission of power another. Each of these entities interacts with one or more distribution networks that ultimately deliver electricity to the consumer. While the divisions of control described herein are not absolute, they nonetheless represent a hurdle for dynamic control of power over a distributed power grid.
A number of limitations of the grid can impede a flow of electricity. For example, there may be time- and/or geographically-dependent limitations on ability of the grid to support transmission of electricity, based on one or more of: supply and demand for the electricity, general conditions on the grid itself, e.g., aging, failing or dated equipment, and location-specific or congestion issues. This problem becomes even more complicated with introduction of renewable, but unreliable, sources of the energy. For example, the power producer or the power consumer can act as a regional energy operator distributing energy between energy generators and loads located within a corresponding region. Due to various reasons, including unreliability of renewable source of the energy, the regional energy operator can be both the power producer and the power consumer at different point of time. For example, the regional energy operator is the power producer when the power generators of the region produce more energy than demanded by the loads in the regions. In contrast, the regional energy operator is the power consumer when the power generators of the region produce less energy than demanded by the loads in the regions. Such versatility disturbs the balance between the energy provided to an electrical grid and the energy consumed from the electrical grid.
Some methods determine and maintain the balance of energy flow in the electrical grid by determining the amount of energy each power producer or power consumer needs to supply or consume. For example, the method disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 8,401,709 teaches the control system that collects all information from all energy operators to determine their corresponding amounts of energy. However, this method requires that each energy operator share all information with the control system, which can be undesirable in some situations due to the privacy constraints.
Accordingly, there is a need for controlling an amount of electricity passing through an electrical grid while preserving the privacy constraints of each power producer.